[HN Gopher] Google Release Chrome OS Flex
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Google Release Chrome OS Flex
Author : BoumTAC
Score : 127 points
Date : 2022-02-15 18:46 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (chromeenterprise.google)
(TXT) w3m dump (chromeenterprise.google)
| jdlyga wrote:
| The only computer I might need to use this on is my 2017
| Chromebook that's now out of support and can't be updated :(
| tomComb wrote:
| Glad to see that this is pure web: will not include support for
| android apps.
|
| Kind of ironic that Microsoft is going to the step of taking
| googles android and hacking it onto windows, while Google is not
| adding android to (this version of) their OS. Not exactly sure
| what the irony is actually, but it's in there somewhere.
| daveidol wrote:
| Microsoft adding Android to Windows seems almost like a
| reaction to Apple adding support for iOS apps on macOS ARM.
| That way if iOS apps end up becoming a smash hit on Mac,
| Windows can keep pace.
| bduerst wrote:
| Doesn't Android-enabled Chrome OS require containers to run
| properly?
|
| I seem to remember there being a pretty high bar (for
| Chromebooks anyway) of hardware requirements to be able to run
| android on Chrome OS machines. Even my shitty burner chromebook
| struggled to run the beta in dev mode.
|
| Given that this is targeted at repurposing even _older_
| hardware, including Android would probably be creating
| performance issues.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Yes it does, here is the Google IO talk
|
| https://youtu.be/pRlh8LX4kQI
| ewired wrote:
| I think this is gonna be used for school lab computers, like my
| high school's hand-me-down OptiPlexes from the local state
| university. Students will only need access to e-learning sites.
| Android app support would open up a lot of malware or viddy
| gaming during prescribed pretending-to-watch-course-videos
| time.
| dvh wrote:
| How long till it's cancelled? 6 months?
| inlined wrote:
| Am I the only person who's vaguely interested but won't try this
| until it supports dual boot?
| longstation wrote:
| Or running it in a VM?
| ben1040 wrote:
| This sounds like the continuation of Neverware, which they
| acquired at the end of 2020.
|
| https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/12/google-acquired-neve...
| kyrra wrote:
| Googler, opinions are my own.
|
| I believe this is exactly what it is.
| cercatrova wrote:
| Reminds me of https://www.mightyapp.com/ which streams Chrome to
| your desktop.
| throwawayHN378 wrote:
| Ok but it doesn't let me download anything
| notyourday wrote:
| This is how to get it:
|
| https://support.google.com/chromeosflex/answer/11541904?hl=e...
| notyourday wrote:
| This is a much more interesting technical summary:
|
| https://support.google.com/chromeosflex/answer/11547280?hl=e...
| binkHN wrote:
| Very helpful--thanks--goes into a lot of detail regarding Flex
| versus CloudReady.
| babypuncher wrote:
| I am struggling to think of a reason why I would want to run
| Chrome OS instead of macOS, Windows, or Linux. Then again, I've
| never understood the appeal of Chromebooks to begin with.
| seltzered_ wrote:
| Bizarrely reminds of a decade ago when HP's Open webOS was
| intended to ship on PCs:
|
| - https://www.engadget.com/2011-03-09-webos-will-on-every-hp-p...
|
| - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sS3Vk821w8
| jsight wrote:
| The annoying thing is that they can do this, but they won't offer
| some sort of extended support for old chromebooks. It seems like
| they could at least keep the user layer up to date and ship
| patches for critical vulnerabilities.
| nmstoker wrote:
| That was my first thought too.
|
| They charge in like heroes to extend the life of laptops with
| other company's operating systems and yet the four year old
| Chromebook that perfectly suits my parents' limited performance
| needs is being abandoned even though it's still fully
| functional.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| For bonus points: I'm trying to figure out if this will work
| _on Chromebooks_. So you flash a coreboot+tianocore build
| (mrchromebox is a popular prebuilt option) to convert your EOL
| chromebook to a normal UEFI laptop... and then install Chrome
| OS Flex, and get a supported Chrome OS device again? I can 't
| see any reason it wouldn't work...
| kingcharles wrote:
| What CPUs does Flex support though? This would be great to
| recover EOL Chromebooks. There are literally millions of them
| out there that are dead now, but would perform perfectly with
| Flex.
| onion2k wrote:
| If you try it and it's good this would be worth doing a Show
| HN post for.
| livinglist wrote:
| that's how google does things, I won't be surprised.
| vero2 wrote:
| Blame intel for not updating older devices...
| mh- wrote:
| What updates could they need from Intel to keep the
| OS/userspace up to date?
| jeffbee wrote:
| "up to date" implies that fixes are being identified,
| developed, and distributed. If your wifi card has some
| flaw, and intel fixes it, and google distributes the fix
| then your device is "up to date". If you don't care about
| this property then you also don't care that a Chromebook
| only gets updates for 7 years. It is, after all, not going
| to just switch itself off at the end of the support term.
| [deleted]
| madjam002 wrote:
| Seriously considering trying this with some of my family members.
| Windows 10 is such a user hostile OS especially to non-techie
| people that every time I look at their PC their documents have
| moved to some new OneDrive location or Edge has reinstalled
| itself.
| johnx5c wrote:
| > Windows 10 is such a user hostile OS
|
| That's a bit ironic. Microsoft is only trying desperately to do
| what Google has already succeeded at with ChromeOS - an OS with
| no browser choice designed solely to funnel user data to them
| for data mining and to promote their own services. At least
| Google are up front about it while Microsoft is trying to dark-
| pattern their way to the same position.
| binkHN wrote:
| I think the problem here is expectations--with Windows, you
| know you're getting a heavyweight legacy OS with backwards
| compatibility for everything. With Chrome OS, you have few
| expectations and assume it's largely "just for browsing the
| web."
| pinephoneguy wrote:
| r00fus wrote:
| I tried chromebooks a while back and while the cost factor was
| significantly in favor of them, they fall down in a lot of
| areas.
|
| With Apple Silicon 2020 MBAs they seem to support everything,
| are significantly faster/quieter/long battery and with
| discounts are reasonably priced - I'm recommending those for
| family and so far everyone has loved theirs.
|
| I expect the hardware to last a long time - much like the 2010
| MBA which lasted my dad 7+ years.
| Dma54rhs wrote:
| The target market for Chromebooks is as far as it can get for
| the privileged who can buy their kids and close ones latest
| macbooks, it's like suggesting some sort of sportscar instead
| of wolkswagen saying with good financing they are not that
| expensive to keep up.
| brimble wrote:
| My dad picked one (edit: a Chromebook, that is) up a couple
| years ago, which I thought was great because most of their
| market is kids and old people (isn't it?) so it'd surely have
| great accessibility features, and as you note Windows has been
| getting more and more hostile since at least Win10 (which
| tricked one of my uncles into paying for OneDrive without even
| knowing what it was ["something I need to use the computer, I
| think?"], leaving him confused about where files were going).
|
| Nope. Dunno if ChromeOS is subpar, or if Apple's just so far
| ahead that it's spoiled me, but Chrome OS' accessibility
| settings seemed pretty poor, and some of what they did have
| didn't work very well.
| iddan wrote:
| Finally! I remember installing Chromium OS on my netbook back in
| 2011 and I always felt like a supported build from Google has so
| much opportunity to renovate old computers
| throwaway932489 wrote:
| Good timing given Windows 11 dropping support for all sorts of
| hardware
| notyourday wrote:
| I have a previous generation Chromebox that I use for video
| conferencing. It is absolutely infuriating that a modern
| ChromeOS does not work on it not because the specs are out of
| date but because Google just does not allow it.
|
| It has a supported CPU, a supported wifi, a supported USB and a
| supported bluetooth a supported disk and a supported amount of
| memory. But it is out of ChromeOS support window.
| wffurr wrote:
| Disable write protect on the firmware and install Flex or a
| Linux distro. Wish they'd automatically unlock the firmware
| on devices that fall out of the support window.
| jsight wrote:
| Have there been any howtos for installing Flex? It does
| seem like that'd be a possibility, and it'd be a great way
| to extend the update window if it worked.
| notyourday wrote:
| I'm going to try Flex. I don't want Linux on it. It is just
| a video conferencing box. I want it to be a total
| appliance.
|
| P.S. I just checked - not a single Chromebook/Chromebox are
| listed on a supported devices list.
| zinekeller wrote:
| > Reduce e-waste and extend the life of your existing devices by
| transforming them with a modern OS.
|
| Flies in the face of many functional Chromebooks/Chromeboxens
| losing support
| (https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/6220366). Extend the
| support lifetimes of _your first-party hardware_ and I 'll
| believe you, Google. Unfortunately, you have definitely burnt
| many bridges over this.
| notacoward wrote:
| Couldn't agree more. My 2015 Chromebook Pixel was EOLed not too
| long ago. Microsoft will still support Windows on older
| machines than that. If Google wants to go all white-knight
| about preventing e-waste then supporting their _own_ older
| machines is the first thing to do. Otherwise it looks like just
| greenwashing as a tactic to convert Windows /MacOS hardware to
| their own OS.
| ignoramous wrote:
| > _Today, the OS is in early access and you may experience some
| instability._
|
| Tomorrow the OS is EOL and you may experience deja vu:
| https://killedbygoogle.com/
|
| Jk, they won't surely?
| geofft wrote:
| Google is a business - they are neither a kindly old wizard
| doing things for the good of the people, nor are they a game
| show wheel, randomly picking a product to kill today.
|
| You can pretty accurately model what they will and won't do
| with this one unusual insight that they're a business.
|
| For instance: are they going to kill Chrome? No, Chrome has
| given them market dominance as well as a seat at the table to
| _define_ web standards, improving and shaping the web
| platform both to be a more appealing product to developers
| and users, so that they can make more money when they stick
| ads on it, and to more easily support sticking ads on it. Or,
| briefly, Chrome - though it 's not a paid product per se -
| makes them huge amounts of money.
|
| What about (from that website) Google Currents? It's the
| rebranded, corporate-only version of Google+. Its biggest
| user was almost certainly Google itself, and it was a venue
| for employee activism and therefore was a threat to corporate
| profit. Briefly, though it was a paid product, they had few
| paying users and it cost them money.
|
| A sibling comment mentions the end of legacy free G Suite
| (formerly GAFYD) accounts for very small users. This was, by
| definition, a thing that didn't make them money and a thing
| that was hardly an on-ramp for subscriptions that did make
| them money. Again, you could predict this.
|
| So what abut Chrome OS Flex? It remains to be seen - it's not
| as clearly worthwhile as Chrome or even Chrome OS itself. But
| Google does absolutely make money on Chrome OS Enterprise,
| which this product is clearly linked with. It's nowhere in
| the same boat as things they provided out of the kindness of
| their corporate-personhood heart like legacy free G Suite or
| Google Reader.
|
| It might end up being a failed experiment, certainly. But
| "It's a Google product" is a weak signal about whether it's
| going to get killed, and there are many stronger signals. Let
| me know when they kill Ads and Cloud.
| qwertox wrote:
| Lately with the G Suite announcement it has felt more like a
| massacre. Who cares about Google Currents shutting down, when
| we have already learned not to touch new Google products like
| Duo, Hangouts, Meet or whatever they are named.
| squarefoot wrote:
| Translation: lots of cheap 2nd hand Chromebooks/boxes to
| unlock and flash with an open OS.
|
| https://mrchromebox.tech/
| vero2 wrote:
| most chromebooks got up to 6 years support. BTW, one can still
| use these old ones, they will get LaCros (where only browser
| gets updated).
|
| > Flies in the face of many functional Chromebooks/Chromeboxens
| losing support
|
| On these old hardware you can install Linux or even cloudready.
| Are you expecting support forever?
| eeeficus wrote:
| No, of course not! Let's throw away perfectly good computers.
| Yes I know that you can use Linux but I expect that if I'm
| buying a chromebook, I like the OS as well?
| HelixEndeavor wrote:
| The whole premise of the Chromebook and reason for its
| market share is the simplicity to average users. Most of
| what we do is web browser-focused. So cut out the fat and
| have a computer that's all about the web browser.
|
| The proposition of installing Linux on these machines once
| they're EOL flies in the face of the reasons most users buy
| them, and won't at all address the core issue.
| notacoward wrote:
| > Are you expecting support forever?
|
| How about as long as Microsoft? Or Red Hat? Why the hell not?
| _Algernon_ wrote:
| I used my last laptop for 10 years. If you _actually_ want to
| "Reduce e-waste and extend the life of your existing
| devices", install a Linux distro with a light DE (e.g i3 or
| xfce).
| jethro_tell wrote:
| I'd like support until I decide to be done with it.
|
| With a Linux base, it seems like releasing the drivers to
| mainline and supplying browser updates ought to take care of
| that. I don't really understand what else would need to go
| into that so maybe I'm missing something but especially for
| x86 boxes it should be pretty simple.
| arianvanp wrote:
| That is what I'm expecting because that is what the
| competition they're trying to protect from ewaste with this
| weird product is already basically offering. My last laptop
| I've used for 10 years. A good gaming desktop will stay
| relevant for at least 10 years. Microsoft will support it for
| longer than that
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| > Are you expecting support forever?
|
| I mean... maybe? Why not? At worst, drop to a second tier of
| support where firmware might not get updated and new features
| that actually need new hardware don't work, but why should
| chromebook hardware stop working any more than any other PC?
| Most of my machines are 5-10 year old machines that Linux
| happily supports; why should Chrome OS - built on _top_ of
| Linux - support any less?
| notyourday wrote:
| I see Google still has not realized that they should list the
| devices it supports in the announcement...
| sahaskatta wrote:
| Here's the list:
| https://support.google.com/chromeosflex/answer/11513094?hl=e...
| CraneWorm wrote:
| it boots from a usb stick and seems web only so it should run
| anywhere you can run chrome browser; I suppose?
| protomyth wrote:
| Well, drivers are still important since it is an OS and not a
| layer on top of the installed OS.
|
| _STEP 2_
|
| _When you're ready, install Chrome OS Flex on your PC or Mac
| to replace your operating system._
| turbinerneiter wrote:
| Can one use Firefox on ChromeOS?
| pa7ch wrote:
| Yes but it runs through a linux VM so it won't get quite native
| speed and reduce your battery life. It seamlessly installs as
| an app you can just open though which is a slick feature of
| crostini.
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| If this won't support Android apps, it won't get mass adoption.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| They could add that in later. Honestly stuff like this is a
| great solution for older parents or young kids who really do
| just need internet browsing.
| smallerfish wrote:
| I hope they've spun up a support organization to back this. Their
| list of "supported" hardware is pretty thin right now. Are they
| really planning to scale this to all models?
|
| https://support.google.com/chromeosflex/answer/11513094#zipp...
| 0x0 wrote:
| Yeah I don't see "MacBookPro18,2" there despite the landing
| page claiming this OS will work on devices I already own.
| jsnell wrote:
| Creating the installation media via a Chrome Extension sure is a
| wonky process.
|
| First try: can't actually do it from Linux Chrome, has to be
| Windows/Mac/Chromebook.
|
| Second try, on Windows: Extension downloads the image. Windows
| asks if I want to allow Chrome to make system changes. Then
| Chrome crashes.
|
| Third try, on the same machine: The exact same image is
| downloaded again. Writing the USB stick finally works.
|
| The extension is able to write raw data to a USB device, which
| seems like rather privileged hardware access. But there is
| nothing in the permissions section of the extension suggesting
| there is anything special about it. That seems really strange.
|
| (It was just creating the image that was odd. Once that was done,
| everything was smooth on a Windows 8-era Samsung laptop.)
| SirGiggles wrote:
| Perhaps WebUSB? I recall that flashing Google Android images
| was possible directly from the browser
| jeffbee wrote:
| I wonder if you could have just written the image with Etcher.
| reaperducer wrote:
| How is this different than the old thin client craze from
| 20-something years ago?
| hughrr wrote:
| Well it's 50000% less shit than Citrix for a start.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Thin client was not "a craze" it was industry bread and butter
| for decades. It was and maybe still can be considered IBM's
| core business. Sun sold hundreds of thousands of seats of the
| Sun Ray.
|
| In case your question was serious, a device with ChromeOS is
| just a Linux box with as powerful a processor, as much memory,
| and as much storage as you care to supply. There's nothing
| "thin" about it.
| candiddevmike wrote:
| I can't find anymore information about the VDI plug in the
| workplace section, anyone have a link? Is Google getting into the
| cloud VDI business, or is it "Chrome os can use VDI tools"
| handwaving?
| machinerychorus wrote:
| Microsoft used to bundle a browser with their OS, now Google is
| bundling an OS with their browser. Time is a flat circle.
| eugenekolo wrote:
| Will this version, like regular ChromeOS support a Linux
| Subsystem (Crostini)?
|
| I've recently played a bit with a Chromebook I have for work,
| best I can describe it is as "ok". It's kind of fun to be able to
| write emails, or journal/blog in Google Docs. I really can't see
| how I would recommend it to anybody really with just that
| ability. Even non-tech people like to download the occasional
| program, and not everything is on the web. The Chromebook is able
| to run Android apps which makes it slightly more useable (Looks
| like ChromeOS Flex cannot?).
|
| The ability to run Crostini makes it more developer friendly. I
| was able to set up Android Studio, Python, Gcc, and it's a fairly
| decent on-the-go dev machine... I don't live such a nomadic
| lifestyle, but I can see it being pretty fun if you do.
| banana_giraffe wrote:
| The answer to that is "maybe" (
| https://support.google.com/chromeosflex/answer/11542901?hl=e...
| ):
|
| > Support for Linux development environment on Chrome OS Flex
| varies, depending on the specific model. Review the Certified
| models list to check if your models support Linux on Chrome OS
| Flex.
|
| The link on that page to the list of supported hardware doesn't
| actually show which machines support Linux.
| darklion wrote:
| Chrome is notable for being a memory hog; older devices, almost
| by definition, do not come with modern amounts of memory. I
| wonder what the performance is going to be like.
|
| Also, I question how well optimized Chrome OS can be for PC
| substrates. It's one thing to run Chrome OS on a device built
| around what Chrome OS supports; Chromebooks are essentially the
| Mac hardware model: limited hardware that is known to be
| compatible with the software running on it.
|
| In the wild, though, PCs have a mind-boggling array of different
| hardware; I wonder how well Chrome OS is going to adapt to that
| Wild West.
| jklinger410 wrote:
| Don't they just use the linux kernel for hardware?
| simonmales wrote:
| I wonder how this will help get drivers mainlined.
|
| And if OEMs will start offering Chrome OS Flex devices off
| the shelf.
| jsight wrote:
| Chromebooks often come with ~4GB and run pretty well. I think
| they are just relying on Linux having relatively broad hardware
| support along with proprietary drivers for the most common
| video chipsets. I doubt it will be exceptionally hard, given
| that Chrome OS tends to have relatively limited support for
| peripherals anyway. Its not like they have to support high
| performance 3d gaming.
| bduerst wrote:
| >Chrome is notable for being a memory hog
|
| This meme comes from a misunderstanding of how desktop memory
| works. Chrome will use as much available RAM as you can give it
| in order to improve web performance, but it doesn't actually
| require that much to run.
| redwall_hp wrote:
| And...modern web cruft is a memory hog. Chrome's built in
| task manager shows the tab I'm writing this comment in as
| using a reasonable 50MB of memory. Meanwhile, I have a couple
| of YouTube tabs that are over 200MB each.
|
| The problem is the world doesn't hold web developers
| responsible for being wasteful.
| int_19h wrote:
| The entirety of the HN Add Comment page is 82 lines of HTML
| (that's _after_ pretty-printing it!) - two tables, and a
| form with a text area. The only image is the logo. Granted,
| there 's also 175 lines of CSS linked from that, and 150
| lines of JS (which does not use any libraries or
| frameworks).
|
| How did we get to the point where 50 Mb to maintain this
| document structured in memory and ready to render is
| considered reasonable?
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